Center for World Conflict and Peace

Friday, March 20, 2015

A CWCP Conversation: The Israeli Elections

Salih Zeki Fazlioglu—Anadolu Agency/Getty ImagesBelow is a conversation between CWCP President and Co-Founder Brad Nelson and CWCP Vice President and Co-Founder Yohanes Sulaiman on this week's Israeli elections. We hope you enjoy.

Brad Nelson: Well, to start, Bibi's Likud won, which has
seemed to surprise the media. Sure, the polls had his party down a few points,
but was his win that much of a surprise? Thoughts?

Yohanes Sulaiman: There's a very good article in
Politico Magazine that asks why the media always gets Israeli elections so wrong, and it blames the complexity of the Israeli electoral system,
which in turn causes the polls to be very unreliable. But my gut feeling is
that James Taranto, whose blog is always provocative and fun to read, even if
you sometimes disagree with him, got it right when he quipped,"What’s
curious about all this is that the media’s and the Obama administration’s
hostility toward Netanyahu appear to have made his victory resounding rather
than routine."

What in my opinion is very interesting is that the Gulf States seem to welcome Netanyahu's victory -- because like them, Bibi is concerned about Iran, which seems to be unlike the view from
Washington and the mainstream media in the US.

BN: Let’s talk more about Sunni Arab issue. It does lend
credence to the blog post you wrote a while back on how “Everyone Loves
Israel.” Of course, you were referring to Arab leaders/governments (not to Arab
citizens), who value Israel’s push back against Iran’s move for regional
hegemony. Israel is an important bulwark against Iran in the ME and the Sunni
governments know it. The potential Iran deal—which is perceived by these
states, along with Israel, as treating Iran too lightly–only heightens the
importance of Netanyahu to them. Plus, they all have to be concerned about
Iran’s de facto cooperation with the US on ISIS. On the one hand, ME countries
fear that Iran’s effort to beat back ISIS is tempting Washington to make hasty
and far-reaching concessions on Iran’s nuclear program. But they also wonder if
Team Obama is tilting toward Iran.

YS: The biggest problem here is the clear lack of a US
strategy in the Middle East. From the botched responses to the Arab Spring to
the "Red Line" in Syria, the Obama administration has again and again
confounded states in the region through its apparent incompetence. Of
course, the fact that Obama is not at all close to any of the leaders (unlike
Bush) also hurts, and this is the type of culture where "chumminess"
is important, that everything is based on personal relationships.

Moreover, I do think that the Gulf States actually do not consider ISIS as
much of a threat as Iran. ISIS is seen as a more manageable group, even though
in the end it might bite its former masters. But it seems to me that they
are very sure that they can handle ISIS, but not Iran. Thus you don't see
Riyadh freaking out over ISIS taking over Mosul, but it is very jittery over a small
Shiite protest in Bahrain.

Not surprisingly, the Gulf states are very skeptical about
Obama's negotiations with Iran. They looked at how he botched events in the
Middle East and how he seems not to understand the real threats from those
Iranians. In fact, I think it is given, from the Gulf States' perspective, that
they are not thinking of how good the treaty would be, but how bad it would be.

With the US seemingly lost at sea, Israel, regardless of how
distasteful it is seen by the Arabs, remains the only state willing to join the
rest to tackle Iran.

BN: Let’s shift gears. What won the election for Netanyahu?

YS: It is a combination of several factors -- but I think he
won with the argument that he was the only one who could provide security and
deal with Iran. I won't be surprised if the revelation that there's a possibility
that Obama administration was trying to influence the election also had impact.

BN: It will be interesting to see, once the dust settles,
whether Netanyahu’s move to the far right gained him any votes. After all, in
recent days he squashed any plan for a two-state solution, at least on his
watch, promised settlement expansion in East Jerusalem, and went into hysterics
about Israeli Arabs voting en masse and determining the electoral outcome.Of course, his comments on these issues were
politically motivated, designed to rile up the hardliners. And it’s easy to say
they were decisive, that these late-game statements were the reason that the
polls were wrong. But I’m not so sure.

YS: Not sure, but I doubt that a single speech or two in the
last days of elections matter, unless there's a strong "current"
leading to it.

For instance, in my discussion on Jokowi's electoral victory, I made two statements
that seemed to confirm the late surge effect, notably the election day fiasco
in Hong Kong and the massive pro-Jokowi weekend concert leading to the
election. The Hong Kong fiasco in essence confirmed
to many of Jokowi's supporters and those already wary about Prabowo that the
political elites were really up to game the system, to cheat in order to steal
their votes -- a confirmation bias -- that further galvanized them to go to the
polling station. Same thing with the concert -- it was more of an affirmation of
the youth enthusiasm to Jokowi. In effect, it is more of factors that encourage
people to go to polls, thus reducing the number of people who don't vote.

I am not sure if Netanyahu's speech changed the dynamics
that much, that people who were voting for the rightist parties suddenly got
epiphanies and all voted for Netanyahu.

BN: I think you’re probably right—but it’s something to
watch as empirical analyses come out in the coming weeks and months ahead. But
what about the regional and international impact of Netanyahu’s comments? How
do you see that playing out?

My take is that Netanyahu’s statements won’t be good for
Israel; they only create more unnecessary obstacles for the country. The
Palestinians, believing that the peace process is dead once and for all, will likely
step up their attempts to get recognition from the UN and into various UN
bodies. I fully expect in the near future another round of violence from
Gaza-based groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Relations with the US will
likely worsen. After all, the Obama administration, especially since John Kerry
took his post as Secretary of State, has invested considerable time and effort
in the peace process and is against further settlement expansion. And now all
of that is for nothing. There’s also the prospect we will see once again
protests against and attempts to boycott Israel from foreign leftist activists.
And of course, Europe won’t be happy.

The question, then, is how bad this will be for Israel. A
headache? Or a disaster? It seems that Netanyahu made a bet. He’s willing to
suffer any blowback from hawkish moves for a few votes and a strengthened
domestic political coalition. And there’s the distinct chance that the
international and regional blowback might not be as high as we’d ordinarily
think. At bottom, the geostrategic problems in the ME actually mean that the
wind is at his back for now. Ian Bremmer sums it up nicely. He writes: “Israel’s
position in the Middle East has actually strengthened in the past couple of
years. The Israeli and Egyptian governments have common enemies in Hamas and
the Muslim Brotherhood. Israel and Turkey share enmity toward Syria’s Bashar
al-Assad. The Saudis, Emiratis and others are far more concerned with future
threats from Iran than with current help for Palestinians. All these factors
ease pressure on Netanyahu to change direction on current policy.”

YS: On Netanyahu: he has backtracked, stating that he
doesn't oppose two-state solution, but just the current arrangement of Abbas-Hamas. Obama, I
think, has disliked Netanyahu anyway. It is not that I approve of Netanyahu's
policies -- I think some of his policies, notably the expansion of settlements,
are very counter productive and I do think that this guy does not have a long
term plan, unlike Ariel Sharon, whom by the end of his life before he got ill, I started to give him a grudging respect. Unlike what others think, I
do think that had he not been incapacitated, he could have
delivered a settlement.

Back to the result of the election: I could be wrong, but I
am not sure that both the PA and Obama would react differently had
Herzog and the left won the election. The PA would act belligerently (ask Ehud
Barak and Olmert about it), thinking that they would have a pushover in power. I
mean, this is an incompetent and corrupt organization with old fogeys with no
long term vision leading it, and very unpopular to boot, and the only thing that
could keep it alive without Hamas killing it is to snatch the mantle of
"Palestinian nationalism" from others. Keep in mind that there has
been no Palestinian election in the past couple of years ever since Hamas
trampled over the PA in the Gaza strip.

And Obama, who has zero vision and plan on the Middle East
(ask Dennis Ross about that), might actually pressure Israel hard, thinking
that he could make a breakthrough on Israel's expense to burnish his legacy. I believe that Hamas and Islamic Jihad would increase their
attacks, thinking that the leftist government in Israel would concede to their demands. In essence, aside
from the rhetoric congratulating that good sense had prevailed, nothing much would change
-- and it's possible that this hypothetical outcome would even make things worse. I think the Israeli voters
realized that and thus around 60% of the voters chose the right-wingers anyway.

BN: Yeah, Netanyahu walked back a bit his comments on the
two-state solution. At this point, it’s too late. The damage has been done.
However, you do make an interesting argument, that perhaps not that much would
have changed had Netanyahu lost and Herzog won. It’s possible. I’ve heard
Israeli watchers say that as well, but for a different reason: that Herzog
isn’t the liberal the West believes, and that Israeli domestic politics, which
leans to the right, will place enormous pressure on any prime minister to exact
maximal concessions from the Palestinians.

It has occurred to me that Netanyahu is simply waiting out
Obama. Obama has less than two years left in office. (I’m sure Netanyahu is
counting down the days!) After that, he will deal with a new American
president—from the right or left—who will place far less pressure on Israel
than Obama has over the last six years. So for now, Netanyahu will keep Obama
at arm's length and scuttle any peace talks. But come 2017, things might well
change. I could see Netanyahu fully repairing the Israeli-US relationship and
also going back to the negotiating table with the Palestinians at that point,
once a new president is in the White House and he has full US support of his
policy positions.